What happened to the Damned Girl series? (aka The Resurrection of Nessa)

I’m performing book necromancy. 

Totally a thing. Shhhh.

You may have noticed that the Damned Girl books are no longer available. I’ve had nearly ten people ask me about this in the two (three?) years the series has been out of print, so clearly it’s a hot topic. 

Thank you to those of you who do care. Your dedicated searches for the books have led to something hilarious that I noticed just this morning:

The book hasn’t been available for years, and yet… it’s one of the top searches when you put my name in on Amazon. You guys. I’m blushing. 

I’ve spoken about rewriting this series before, but it’s only recently that it clicked into place what I actually needed to do. 

Some background, before we get to that.

Why is the series unavailable?

I’ve spoken before about my struggles with this series, mostly due to the fact that I wrote book one as a baby author and I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Since later books in series are obviously built on the foundation of the first book, this became a problem. 

I felt like with each subsequent book I was stacking another floor onto a house that was piled higgledy-piggledy on wobbly foundations and threatened to collapse at any moment.  

Deadhead (Damned Girl #1) was absolutely the best book I could have put out at the time, but now? Not so much. I don’t feel comfortable having a series out when I don’t feel like it represents my writing skills, and I especially don’t want to ask people to pay money for less than my best, you know? 

So that’s why I unpublished the series. 

Crystal ball time: What’s in Nessa’s future?

I’ve been walking around the metaphorical series corpse on the floor for the past couple of years, alternating between trying to think of some way to deal with it and pretending it didn’t exist because the idea of revisiting it was too overwhelming. 

Then suddenly, one random day in September 2022, it clicked. I knew what I needed to do. 

Basically, what I’ve done is scrapped the Damned Girl series for parts. 

I know that sounds harsh, but you know. I feel like Nessa is a practical person. She gets it.

Tell me more about this new Nessa series!

This new incarnation of Nessa is not the same as the original series.

Think of it as the remake or the reboot or the reanimated corpse of the original series – it’s back, but it’s… different to how it once was. But in this case better, rather than cursed or out for blood or whatever other issues animated corpses usually have. 

For one thing, it’s set in a different world. Some of you might know about the vampire book I’ve started over three times and haven’t quite managed to get a handle on. (Yet another corpse that needs reanimating. My pentagram is going to be packed over the coming years.) 

Guess what I do have thanks to that series, though? A paranormal world that makes sense!

That was one of the issues with the Damned Girl series that made it tricky for me to write (and, according to the one-star reviews, tricky for some people to read). The world was a bit too, uh, let’s call it whimsical. But now? Now the magic and paranormal elements have actual rules and my fantasy-loving fiancé no longer cringes at my answers when he asks how something in the world works, so that feels like a good sign.

In the old books, the rules of magic weren’t clearly defined, so a lot of bizarre things happened. That’s not a huge deal, since those books were primarily comedy and things are allowed to be a little nonsensical in comedy, but it made it trickier to write, and I don’t think it made it more fun to read. 

The new series will have a more real-world setting, though obviously it’s going to have ghosts and vamps and the Grim Reaper and witches. It’s just also going to have normal things like cars. 

I know. Wild. 

Overall it has stronger vibes and will probably be easier for you to picture. (I’m a lot better at description than when I started out. Did you for example notice that no character in the original edition of Deadhead had any physical description? That wasn’t even an oversight. I just didn’t feel like including it. Like I said, I’ve come a long way.)

Nessa is still her same slightly dodgy self, telling lies and doing necromancy and talking to ghosts. But the story goes off in a different direction from there.  

If you read the DG books you might have fun spotting some of the similarities and changes and references. If you haven’t read the Damned Girl books, it won’t impact your enjoyment of this series at all. This is a fresh start for all of us. 

This book is the kind of story I really wanted to write when I started Deadhead, but couldn’t because I didn’t know what I was doing. 

I know it’s a little strange to basically do an adaptation of a book series as another book series, but I feel like Nessa deserves something she can really shine in. (And she also deserves good covers. Yikes. No one look the old ones up.) 

Book one is tentatively titled The Witch Who Ran Over the Reaper. Here’s the working blurb:

Some people run from Death. Some people run him over. 

I’m Nessa, and I have a problem – the Grim Reaper’s sleeping on my couch. Thanks to a teeny tiny bump from my car, Nox doesn’t remember that he’s Death incarnate. He thinks he’s your average sexy small-town bookstore owner. But I know better. 

Before the car hit him, he was coming for my soul. 

With vampires scouring the town for stolen goods that happen to be harboured under my roof, a trio of witches trying to recruit me into the local coven, and the Grim Reaper’s disturbing addiction to reality TV, I already have plenty on my plate. 

Now people are showing up dead in Gallows End, and I can’t help thinking it’s connected to my new houseguest’s condition. If we don’t catch the killer soon, it looks like I’m next on the list.  

And even if we do stop my imminent murder, I still don’t have a clue what I’ll do when Nox’s memory returns. We might be getting – uh – friendly, but I don’t think that’s going to protect me when he remembers.

That I ran him over.

That I’ve lied about everything. 

That the next soul he’s meant to reap… is mine. 

And because you’ve been so patient with me, here’s a little taster to get you excited for the full cone:

The thing appeared under one of the lamps ahead. It began with a single tendril, a wisp of black smoke slithering up out of the earth like stinging nettle growing through cracked concrete. It looked delicate, not much more than a shadow, as if a sigh could blow it away. 

My heart constricted. My knuckles threatened to burst from the skin, my grip on the steering wheel was so tight. 

Maybe I was wrong. It was so small, and the night was so dark. How could I be sure what I was seeing? One little trick of the light and I was imagining all sorts of things. He hadn’t found me. My mind was playing a joke on me, and it wasn’t the most reliable mind to begin with. There was no reason to think we were in any more trouble than we had been a moment ago. 

A second curl of smoke whispered into the air. A third. A tenth. Within moments, a dark garden had bloomed in front of me, seething over the earth. 

My throat tightened almost painfully, my chant cracking and crumbling to silence. A bargain-basement protective spell was going to do fuck all against this thing anyway. 

The black fog rose from the bitumen, heavy and roiling and catching my lungs like smoke from a tyre fire. It grew as I watched, as we hurtled towards it. The billowing darkness snaked the width of the road as if seeking the safety of gloom outside the glow of the street light. A silhouette formed, wispy at first, then solidifying, the cloak of night churning around it. 

“What the hell is that?” Ed breathed, apparently having realised that the real threat wasn’t behind us. 

I stared at the familiar figure waiting calmly to take us. Ninety percent robe, ten percent man. 

The Grim Reaper. Coming for me. Again. 

There you have it! The book is still funny, by the way, even though this excerpt wasn’t packed with jokes. But you know. It’s got to have some spooky stuff in there too. 

Pre-empting your questions:

When will The Witch Who Ran Over the Reaper be published?

I’m aware that this is very annoying of me, I don’t have a predicted launch date at this stage.

Description doesn’t come as quickly to me as some other parts of writing – eg: dialogue and chaotic internal rambling – so I tend to be a little slower writing paranormal books (which need more description than contemporaries). How much slower? I’m not sure, but I have a feeling these books are going to be longer than my regular books, so we’ve gotta factor that in too. 

Also, I still need some time to think about the book before I write it. I do my best work if I take time to fully think things through before I start writing, and if I rush to get something done then what comes out is not the kind of quality I want. 

If you want to make sure you find out when the book releases, join my newsletter. You can also follow me on Instagram or Facebook or join my Facebook group, but the newsletter is the most reliable way to make sure you’ll actually see updates. 

So will that whole thing with the King be resolved?

Yes! No spoilers, but it will be. Just remember the book-series-as-reanimated-corpse thing – it’s back, but different.

Will all the same characters be back?

Not exactly. Some will, but again – with a difference.

Will the plots of the individual books be the same?

You probably could tell this from the blurb, but no. The individual book plots will be new and the longer arcs have been reimagined. This is for all intents and purposes an entirely new series.